Nov 8, 2019 3 min read

McKEES ROCKS – The outcome of football games usually are decided by a team’s success with checklists.

Teams go into games with specific objectives and those decide the score.

McGuffey went into its WPIAL Class AA quarterfinal game against Riverside with a list. It didn’t go well.

Play good defense? Riverside didn’t punt until the fourth quarter.

Keep Riverside out of the end zone? The Panthers scored six touchdowns in the first three quarters.

Play clean football? McGuffey had eight penalties for 101 yards.

It all added up to a 41-27 loss for the Highlanders on a frigid Friday evening at Montour High School.

Riverside, the third-place finisher in the Midwestern Conference, moved to 9-3 and will play Avonworth in next week’s semifinals. McGuffey, the second-place team from the Century Conference, finished the season with a 9-3 record.

“I don’t know what to say,” said McGuffey head coach Ed Dalton.

“Every year, we take a step but just not as fast as we want. I think if we could play this team best-of-7, then we might win four of them.”

Riverside quarterback Ben Hughes accounted for 191 total yards and scored four touchdowns, three in the decisive first half, to take control of the game. He completed eight of 10 passes for 126 yards and rushed for touchdowns from 7, 8, 4 and 4 yards. Hunter Nulph rushed for 101 yards and scored a touchdown as Riverside scored on all its possessions in the first half.

“We didn’t come out and play very well in the beginning,” said Dalton.

Marshall Whipkey completed 14 of 21 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns. C.J. Cole caught six passes for 121 yards.

“One of our goals was to protect the football and move it, and we did it,” said Riverside head coach Ron Sciarro.

McGuffey’s defense could not handle Riverside’s powerful offense, allowing the Panthers to score on each offensive possession and on one defensive possession to take a 34-13 lead.

Hughes capped the first drive of the game with a 2-yard sneak to make it 7-0 four minutes in.

McGuffey answered in just two plays when Marshall Whipkey found C.J. Cole alone and behind the secondary for a 69-yard score. The extra-point attempt was blocked so it was 7-6.

Nulph ran on five of the six plays in Riverside’s next possession. The final one was from the four yards and made the score 13-6 as the run for the two-point conversion came up short.

Hughes made it 20-6 on an 8-yard run on the next possession. Sciarro then delivered a knockout punch, stepping in front of a Marshall Whipkey pass and returning it 70 yards for a touchdown and 27-6 lead.

“It was a big play now that you look back at it,” Dalton said. “(Whipkey) was trying to make a play – and he made a lot of plays for us – typically he attacks the edge. He made the same play to Yagle later in the game.”

“It was big because it put us up three scores,” said Ron Sciarro.

Nate Yagle cut the Fighting Panthers’ lead to 27-13 by catching a 24-yard pass from Marshall Whipkey 3:17 before intermission.

Hughes scored on a 4-yard run 12 seconds before halftime to make it 34-13.